The most wonderful time of the year
19 December 2006I have an odd fondness for corporate holiday parties– they’re pretty much the only thing that can be categorized as more awkward than work baby showers or work birthday parties, and you have the added perk of being able to look around and wonder “If this was translated into a straight-up per head dollar cost, what kind of a bonus would I have gotten this year? Not that I’m not enjoying these appetizers.” And this year I confirmed what we had long suspected– it is way, way more fun to be at the corporate party if you’re not actually employed by the corporation involved. Even better than THAT is if you used to be employed by them, because you get all the gossip about who got dumped and who got fired, and you get editorial directors coming up to you and going “You don’t belong here anymore, Ms Smell Of Wine And Cheap Perfume!” before running away leaving you in a haze of “Huh, I wonder how many other people in my industry have read my account of life on gatorade’s performance enhancing jelly beans” before realizing that there’s a buffet table of shrimp within striking distance and deciding to focus all of my physical and mental energy on that.
So this was my 3rd year at OldJob’s holiday party, and my first time as a non-employee/ someone who didn’t care who was overhearing them cursing loudly or dancing inappropriately. We’ve all been chasing the glory that was the 2004 Holiday party, when I brought Jordan as my date and we spent the whole time hanging out with Emla and Zander, taking pictures in the photo booth every hour on the hour so we could see our progression of drunkeness, eating mini hamburgers and watching Jordan throw dollar bills at girls that were dancing together. It was phenomenal, and we haven’t been able to top it. Particularly not last year, where the highlight for me was seeing the dancers they hired to dress up as cheerleaders dressed in a uniform that bore the corporate insignia (not. kidding.) and then convincing one of the similarly-attired refs that he should give me his whistle and using it to make all of my friends hate me. (Also, those guys were hired to stroll around a sports-themed room and yell things like “Penalty– Illegal holding!” when they saw people touching each other).
This year I didn’t have nearly as much advance knowledge about the party since I didn’t, you know, work there. I also had a nefarious scheme to score an employees-only gift bag with my old work ID, but I was thwarted when they gave the gift bags out at the office. I’m guessing this is directly related to how we snuck Jordan a gift bag last year, even though he was not currently nor had he every been employed by the host company, only to have him drunkenly give his Futureama calendar away to a homeless guy on the subway (insert inappropriate comments about what a homeless guy is going to do with a wall calendar, and gift items that are even less appropriate for him. Really, go ahead. We’ve made all the jokes possible in the last year. See you in hell). Anyway, all I knew about the party was that it was vaguely “Around The World” themed. As it turns out, that loosely translates into “have a 9 year old from white suburbia write down every stereotype he associates with a variety of countries, then build the holiday party around that.” Which, I’m guessing, is how we wound up with those soccer goals in the Latin America room, and the fish and chips in the Europe room. And, this guy in the Australia room. I wonder how much he was paid for the night. I sincerely hope it was more than my yearly salary.
In Australia, they also had lifeguards and boomerangs. That’s how it is in real life, right, Z? By comparison, the USA room was surprisingly bland. No baseball, no jazz, no slavery, no internet, no messed up election results, no unnecessary lawsuits filed over hot coffee… nothing that a foreigner would call american. Just me, yelling “AMERICA- FUCK YEAH!” over and over again, and dancing to middle school-era hip hop with Whitney and Anna, praying that the next song would be that “I put my hand up on your hip/ when I dip you dip we dip” tune.
Based on that, what would you assume would pop up in Asia? (And can I take this time to talk, again, about how remarkable the Holiday Party episode of The Office was? And how we couldn’t stop quoting it all night, particularly while in Asia? I don’t break into your room and steal your Hello Kitty backpack! You know how they all look the same… waitresses.) But, anyway, what would you contain in the Asia room? Would you maybe put Dance Dance Revolution there?
And then would you have one of your friends take a picture of you where you appear to be having the time of your life despite having the DDR screen pronounce FAILED at you over and over? And you’d probably also assume that Asia would have karaoke, and you’d wait eagerly for members of your art team to bust out a variety of songs, and when they did, you’d respond accordingly:
Also, I really need to recognize that when we first got to the party we were near the karaoke stage (which was in a room large enough to accomodate north of 200 people, which would have been the largest audience I’d ever sang for had I decided not to save my pipes for the following night when a select group of 15 friends or so would hear my vocal stylings on Meatloaf’s “I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That).” So we stood around for awhile commenting on how horribly awkward it was to be in a room with all of your coworkers listening to people do earnest renditions of songs like “You Light Up My Life” and kind of wanting to kill yourself, when Subrights Annette from my very first job took the stage and did a rendition of “It’s Raining Men” that made me want to dance on tables. I love you, Subrights Annette. Be friends with me. It’ll be cool, I promise. Almost as cool as when I was neck-deep in barbeque chicken in the Australia room and one of Cousin Erin’s friends recognized me from across the table in my finest moment when I totally looked like the guy kevin spacey kills for gluttony in 7. Wait, did I just wreck that movie? Is this like the time Jordan called me at college and, as an aside in a story that was no way related to this anecdote said, “Like you know how it turns out that Bruce Willis has really been dead the whole time?” Was it like that? No? Good.
2 Responses to “The most wonderful time of the year”
December 20th, 2006 at 12:23 am
My god that holiday party in 2004 really set the standard. I still tell people about it.
And yes, all we have in Australia is lifeguards and boomerangs and aboriginals in their native attire.
Oh and slavery in the America room would have made my fucking LIFE.
December 20th, 2006 at 1:30 pm
Hello. I don’t usually read blogs (lie. but, true that i don’t usually read people’s personal blogs..mostly i read things about apartments, fashion, and crafty things). however, someone told me to read this as i had made a cameo in an entry. thank you for the kudos on the It’s Raining Men performance. I always need them as it takes A LOT of convincing to get me to do that. Espesh at the company Christmas party…may i direct YOUR attention to something interesting that i found in my web surfing? Check this out:
http://gawker.com/news/judith-regan/judith-regan-why-they-did-it-222513.php